(August 8, 2015 at 7:45 pm)Shuffle Wrote:(August 8, 2015 at 6:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I personally don't believe that people go to Hell for the sole purpose of not believing in God. If I did, I'd also have to say that babies all go to Hell because they don't believe in God.Belief, belief, belief, blah blah blah. Do you have any scripture to back up this belief?
With that being said, I cannot tell you whether or not you are going to Hell. Or anyone else, for that matter. I can't even say if Hitler went to Hell. There are a lot of aspects that go into whether or not a particular person will go to Hell, and to say "[insert person's name here] is going to hell when he dies because he [insert particular sin here]" is simplistic, and not how things work. But it will basically boil down to those people putting themselves there, in the sense that they deliberately chose to turn away from goodness and love... and so they will go to the only place where those things are not present. Of course, none of us can know whether or not any particular person deliberately chose to turn away from those things because we cannot look into their hearts. We cannot measure this by simply looking at the sins they have committed.
It is also not my place to speculate on this. I believe that job is for God and God alone, since He is the only one that knows all the motivations, intentions, sentiments, etc, of a person.
I know it is very strange for an atheist to ask for scripture as proof, however my question came with the presupposition that a hell and a god exists.
It is very strange.
No, this isn't something that is written in the bible. But then again, Catholic teachings are not all written officially in the bible. Remember though, what the Church teaches is that we don't know and can't tell who went or is going to Hell. The rest is an opinion that myself and a lot of Catholics share, but is not officially written out in Catholic documents. Apart from stating that we can't know for sure who is in/goes to Hell, the issue is otherwise left pretty open for members to form their own opinions.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
-walsh
-walsh
